U-boat Commands

Notes

When war broke out he was Oblt.z.S. and Adjutant on the Linienschiff Lothringen. In July 1915 went to the U-Boot-Schule. On the 5th of April 1916 he became commanding officer of the UB 16 which served with the U-Flottille Flandern. In October, on the 13th 1916 he became CO of the UC 47.
In July 1917 he was awarded the Hohenzollerschen Hausorden mit Schwertern. On 16th July 1917 he also became Kapitänleutnant.

On 18 December 1917 he took command of the UB 103. On the 18th August 1918 he was also awarded the Pour le Mérite on demand of Korv.kap. Bartenbach at admiral von Schröder’s office.

He died on his ship on the 16th of September. The origin of the loss of his submarine remains even today a mystery. Some sources claim UB 103 to be hit by a plane bomb and shells from an armed fishing vessel. In reality she had been discovered by the British airship SSZ 1 which signaled the position of the U-boat to the drifter Young Crow. The submarine was already in trouble as she lost oil. She possibly ran on a mine. Sinking, and loosing more oil, the crew of the Young Crow threw some depth charges on the location were it went down, resulting in two heavy explosions and a third heavy explosion half an hour later. Hundius and all his men died. They were given no chance at all for survival.

Hundius sank a total of 67 merchant vessels with a total of 95.280 BRT and one military vessel of 890 tons.

With the reconstruction of the U-boat weapon in the 1930’s, the 6th U-Boot Flottille of the Kriegsmarine received in May 1936 the name Hundius.